Be Kind to Animals Project Part 3

The Big Day...

Last minute preparations in action, the students were busy cutting and wrapping the banana bread.

“We need to make sure to tell everyone we see to be kind to the animals!” Florence exclaimed!

Renee came up with an idea. “Maybe we should write a note for everyone?”

“That would be a million! We would write forever!” Siddharth commented.

The students talked about this for awhile while wrapping and finishing off the donation boxes, and finally decided to print stickers to stick on each wrapped piece of banana bread for each person to get the message. I asked what everyone thought the message should say…

“BE KIND TO ANIMALS! Of course!” the students replied excitedly.

The big day arrived…

“It’s BANANA BREAD DAY!” Marcus came running down the hallway at full speed, ready to start selling.

The students reminded each other of the three important jobs they have been practicing. (They decided that everyone should do something important but different, and then switch around.)

1)    Take the money and give each person their banana bread

2)  Make sure people who buy banana bread get a sticker to wear (and even people who didn’t buy would have a sticker stuck to them!)

3)  Hold their posters high and proud and tell people important facts about keeping animals safe and healthy and taking care of them kindly.

We arrived at our location in the high school and were immediately swarmed with visitors.

“One dollar!  Only one dollar for banana bread!” The students quickly figured out how to lure customers to the table. Before long, an impromptu banana bread song began!

During lulls in the selling, the students walked quietly through the HS library, whispering their requests that students come by banana bread. They also made a round through the cafeteria and our wonderful aunties bought a few pieces.

When we returned to the classroom we counted our money, organizing our dollar coins into piles of 10, and tallying every one. We draw a big smiley face beside each 100. We made over 600 dollars for the SPCA!! Representatives from the animal shelter will be visiting our school to collect the money and give us a talk on how we can continue to spread the word about being kind to animals.

We reflected as a class in conversations, captured our ideas and emotions through building, drawing and writing, and are in the process of thinking  about other ways that we could change the world. I couldn't be more proud of our students.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” –Jane Goodall

Be Kind to Animals Project Part 2

The students came up with an idea…to make money to give to the SPCA!

“We can sell something and people will give money.” Oliver told the class.

“The animals can be helped! They could have blankets and food, right?” Siddharth said.

After much discussion and a couple of big brainstorming sessions, the students decided that we should sell our favorite thing to make…Banana Bread! For quite a few days, there was a constant flurry of activity. Banana bread was being made, signs were constructed, both for hanging around SAS as well as a big one for the tables for our selling day. Students practiced collecting money and giving people the banana bread, as well as inviting people walking by to come try our banana bread. Others conversed, drew and wrote, reflecting on our process.

“1 dollar! 1 dollar for banana bread!” Aaliya called out!

“1 dollar is a good price I think. It’s so easy for us to count! And if we have a lot of one dollars in our box…we will make so much money for the animals!” said Florence.

“We need to hang the posters for everyone to see!” Lachlan’s excitement was contagious!

We hung posters in the ELC, Elementary, Middle and High school. We talked with Mr. Hoss and Mr. Schunk (the ES Principal and one of the Deputy Principals) about our cause, and the students told anyone that passed by us wha we were doing.

Friday Update March 3

We hope you have had as wonderful a week as we have had! The students seem so grown up nowadays!

This week some of our learning included…

*investigating the life cycle of a butterfly—our caterpillar has been in a chrysalis for a while now, and this morning we noticed the skin was almost see through-within the hour, our butterfly emerged! We are letting it go right after school. It is beautiful, a “cheetah” butterfly according to the students!

*reflecting on our Be Kind to Animals project…many of the students wanted to continue to write and talk about our experiences. We are hoping the SPCA will be able to come to the school soon to collect the money we raised and talk with us.

*we did a lot of writing this week! Our last names, letters, words…the students were all in.

*we also did a lot with numbers and representing numbers with objects.

*and much, much, more!

REMINDERS / UPCOMING DATES

*Mango and Oreo Cookie:  Please let me know if you would like to have the guinea pigs over the Spring Break. Also let me know if you would like them over a weekend. J The students have been asking!

*Volunteering in the Classroom:  I am copying the note about this on the e-mail sent. I won’t do a google sign up, since people have told me they prefer just letting me know by e-mail. Fridays from 8:15 to 9:15 is the best time, but just let me know if that doesn’t work and we can be flexible with other days and times.

*March 16^th and 17^th:  Parent-Teacher Conferences—You should have received an e-mail from the school explaining the process for these days. Please note that for Pre K, the students do NOT attend the conferences (they are not student led) and the conferences are 25 minutes and not an hour like the Elementary School. We will have a celebration of learning near the end of the year where our students will walk you through their learning journey books and some of the highlights of our year.

*March 18-26th:  Spring Break-No School

 

Week 26 Feb 27 to Mar 3